Yarbrough outlines “50/50” plan for minimum wage workers

Democratic Senate candidate Grady Yarbrough missed his planned forum with contender Paul Sadler earlier this week, but he provided the Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News Austin bureau with an outline Thursday of his proposed talking points, including an unheard-of expansion of federal funding aimed at cutting unemployment.

Responding to an email request for more information about his planned address to the Texas Association of Professional Educators summit, Yarbrough said he supported improving Medicaid and Medicare by reducing the cost of delivery of service and extend Social Security, among other traditional Democratic talking points.

Grady Yarbrough

What stood out was that he had also proposed expanding the yet-to-pass Dream Act to grant amnesty to parents of the children, as well as a “50/50” plan for workers on minimum wage. The plan, which he mentioned during his debate with Sadler in Dallas, would require the federal government to fund half of the pay for workers.

“This plan divides the cost ($7.25) of labor for the employer,” Yarbrough said. “The employer could hire many more workers, because the cost of labor would be cut in half. The other half of the $ 7.25 would be born by the Labor Department.”

Yarbrough said the federal government has already given a large number of bailouts to corporations, and that this would be a more efficient allocation of resources.

“Recently stimulus monies were given to large Corporations, to put people to work,” Yarbrough said. “They did nothing toward hiring people. Instead these corporations, kept the money, and blamed the climate for not hiring. If they were not going to hire, they should have returned the money to the government.”

In a phone interview response, Sadler said Yarbrough’s proposals lack a fundamental understanding of the impact these policies would have, and that Yarbrough’s proposals for the Dream Act were “piecemeal” and insufficient.

“If the federal government has to pick up half the tab for people on minimum wage, the costs would be astronomical,” Sadler said. “Furthermore, the effect would be the opposite of what he believes — it would suppress job growth. If they could employ so many more people, why ever raise minimum wage? It’s not a realistic idea at all.”

Yarbrough faces Sadler in a July 31 runoff. Yarbrough got 127,971 votes during the primary, compared to 173,947 for Sadler. With no Democrat elected to a statewide office in over a decade, both candidates are notably underfunded compared to their Republican counterparts.